“Oh, absolutely. How old is she?”

“Four.”

Such mundane conversation, and yet she so enjoyed the rumble of his deep voice that she would happily listen to him reading Debrett’s without growing bored. As long as words spilled forth from him, she really didn’t care what they were. “If you’ll come with me . . .”

He followed her to the back wall where they were partially hidden by the bookshelves running perpendicular through the center of the shop, shelves around which they’d waltzed. She knelt. “I keep books appropriate for children on the lower shelves here, so they have easier access to them.”

He crouched beside her, balancing on the balls of his feet, and she couldn’t help but notice how his trousers pulled taut against his thighs or how masculine it looked to have his elbows resting there, his hands clasped before him. He’d removed his gloves, and it took everything within her not to wedge her hand between both of his.

“You’ve been rather scarce,” she whispered, her voice low, hushed.

“I decided a bit of distance between us was needed.”

There certainly wasn’t much between them now. She could feel the heat emanating from him, and the pull of her body toward his, as though he were the moon and she the ocean tides. Or perhaps she was the moon, but it didn’t really matter when the attraction between them seemed so strong. “I thought perhaps you found fault with my eagerness the last time we were together.”

“I found fault only with my own actions. Thank God for your cat.”

She gave him a sly smile. “I’ve been cursing Dickens for interfering.”

“You should be rewarding him for putting a stop to my antics. Things between us almost went too far, Miss Trewlove.”

They had. She knew that. And she’d wanted them to. Whatever was wrong with her? Plenty of men were handsome, but no other made her feel as though she garnered all of his attention, as though he hung on every word she spoke, as though he cared about what she had to say. “After what transpired between us, it seems you should call me Fancy.”

He’d said her name before, and she wanted to hear it again on his lips.

“Fancy.” His voice was low, deep, hinting at secrets and seduction.

“Matthew.” She’d never called him by name before, at least not out loud, not to his face.

He slammed his eyes closed, released a shuddering breath. When he opened them, they contained an intensity that led her to believe he found his name on her tongue as sensual as she found hers on his. “The book?”